Leaders: Stop Modeling Burnout
If you are sending emails at 11 p.m., your team assumes they should be too. If you cancel vacation, they cancel theirs. If you brag about how little sleep you get, they start believing exhaustion is part of the job description.
You don’t need to say it directly, because your behavior does all the talking. And what it is telling people is that burnout is the standard here. That is not leadership, it is negligence, and I don’t want you to be surprised when you suddenly find yourself on a team with a whole lotta burnout.
You can talk about balance all day long, but if you don’t model it, no one will believe you.
What Happens When You Model Burnout
Deadlines lose meaning. If you commit to Tuesday and consistently deliver the Friday before because you worked your ass off all day, your team learns deadlines aren’t real. If you talk about balance but still send weekend messages, they realize balance is just a talking point.
Your people mirror your behavior. If you live in your inbox, they will too. If you never unplug, they will grind themselves down trying to keep up. Culture spreads quickly, and if you are modeling burnout, you are multiplying it across your entire team.
I want to make it incredibly clear that it does. not. matter. what you say. You could be out here spouting the most wonderful, thoughtful, supportive comments about people taking care of themselves and taking their PTO and whatever whatever, if you’re not DOING IT YOURSELF it’s just empty words.
What It Looks Like to Model Burnout Prevention
You log off at the end of the day and you do not sneak in “just one more thing” at midnight. You take your vacation and you stay out of your inbox while you are away. You make it clear through action, not empty words, that protecting your energy is part of the job.
You follow through on what you promise. If something shifts, you communicate early and clearly instead of leaving people hanging.
You own mistakes when they are yours. No dodging, no deflecting, no pretending it did not happen. Just acknowledgment and a plan to make it right.
And you normalize healthy work. You take breaks in the middle of the day. You leave on time. You talk openly about protecting your energy so your team knows they have permission to do the same.
As a recovering workaholic, YES, I KNOW THAT IS HARD. But it pays off nearly immediately when people see you doing it and know it’s also okay for them to do the same. That’s how you build a team of people who would follow you anywhere.
Burnout Is Contagious. Luckily, So Is Balance.
Accountability is not only about deadlines and deliverables. It is also about owning your role in creating a sustainable culture. If your team is burning out, you need to look at what you are modeling. Because whether you intend to or not, they are learning from you.
If you are overextending, they will too. If you are burning yourself out, you are teaching them that is the price of success. And if you model balance, real balance rather than lip service, they will follow you there as well.
At The Threadsmith Group, we work with leaders who are ready to stop normalizing burnout and start building environments where accountability and sustainability go hand in hand.